The cryptocurrency market has been experiencing a downward trend since the beginning of May, with Bitcoin and Ether leading the losses among the top 10 tokens by market capitalization. According to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 1.22% to US$27,043, and Ether also fell and remained slightly above the $1,800 mark in the last 24 hours. The global crypto market cap also declined by 1.26% to US$1.12 trillion in the same period.
Bitcoin and Ether Vs. Asian Market
One of the reasons for the bearish sentiment is the weak performance of the Asian equity markets, which were affected by the disappointing data from China’s April imports and exports. Investors also became cautious ahead of the U.S. inflation report due on Wednesday, which could influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions.
Solana was one of the biggest losers among the top 10 tokens, dropping 2.52% to US$20.71 in 24 hours and 5.49% in seven days. Solana’s ecosystem also suffered a blow when two major non-fungible tokens (NFT) collections, DeGods, and Y00ts, announced that they will be migrating to Ethereum and Polygon early this year. NFTs are digital assets that represent unique ownership of artworks, collectibles, games, and other forms of creative expression.
Ether, the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, dropped 0.84% and stayed above $1800 in 24 hours. Ether has been outperforming Bitcoin in recent months thanks to the growing popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are mostly built on Ethereum.
However, Ether also faces challenges such as network congestion, high gas fees, and competition from other smart contract platforms.
Polygon Took the Hardest Hit
Among the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, Polygon’s Matic token dropped the most, declining 3.5% to US$0.8975, bringing its weekly losses to 11% last week. However, this week’s price has gone up 1.92%. Polygon is a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum that aims to provide faster and cheaper transactions for DeFi and NFT applications.
Despite the recent slump, Polygon has seen a surge in adoption and partnerships with major projects such as Aave, SushiSwap, and OpenSea.
The crypto market is known for its high volatility and unpredictability, which makes it both exciting and risky for investors and traders. While some analysts believe that the current downtrend is temporary and that the market will recover soon, others warn that more losses are possible in the near future.
